Excited to Not Be Alone

During my first ACE Summer, I heard the phrase “Intentional Christian Community” again and again. I wrote about it, discussed it, and thought extensively of what it would be like to live in a house filled with other young teachers in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. I was excited to not be alone. I was excited to have a real house. I was excited to be among others who would pray with me and help me know all of the faces the Catholic faith can have.

There was one word, though, that I did not fully grasp until I arrived in Tucson. That word is “intentional.” No matter where we were from, all of us were used to roommates and siblings, but an ACE community is something else entirely and it does require work.

I will never forget the day I first arrived in Tucson. I left early in the morning in my little yellow Mini Cooper and trekked the 15 hours from Fort Worth all by myself. Near the Tucson city limits, I pulled into a truck stop and called my parents. I was nervous, I said, because I had no idea what was going to happen. At every other major transition in my life, I had a much clearer idea of what lay on the other side.

As I approached our house: nestled in the foothills of the mountains with no streetlights to be found, I grew more nervous. Every driveway was equally dark and mysterious, and none of them yet looked like home.

I had to make four U-turns, but eventually I found our house and everyone was waiting eagerly in the warm light to go get hamburgers. What meant so much was that they had chosen to wait, even though I was so late arriving.

That is what the past year and a half have been. In the midst of days filled with complete uncertainty (what do I do when a kids pants rip clear down the middle?), the ACE Tucson house is always there filled with light and 6 or 7 other teachers and learners.

The seven of us operate on wildly different schedules and on any night there are about 40 tasks each of us could be doing, but we still gather for community dinner four nights each week to eat, pray, and share stories. That is where community becomes intentional and where it means the most.  A year and a half later, our tan house on Tortolita is a happy place to return.

Everyone has their habits, good and bad. I, for instance, tend to take too many ice cubes from the freezer and leave my shoes in a myriad of strange locations around the house. What I learned early on, though, is that these little inconveniences do not matter. I know that my housemates are doing God’s work every day with their students. I know many days that work is not easy. And so again we must be intentional to accept the little quirks and the little habits and to love more for them, as we are each children and servants of God.

In class I tell my sixth graders again and again that all of their actions are choices: the way they sit in a chair, the way they speak to adults, whether or not they finally remember to wear a belt to school. Living in an intentional community has reminded me that all of attitudes, actions, and words are choices as well, and that the most powerful way to use these choices is to accept all of the funny little ways that people can be, to appreciate every laughing voice and listening ear, and to try to ease the burden of others with each choice I make.